The New Rocket Science

My second visit to the central library was nowhere as rewarding as my first. I must remind myself never again to go on a public holiday. Apparently, the 10-storey building located across the street from Victoria Park turns into no other than an indoor version of the Victoria Park on Sundays and public holidays. The escalator leading up to the first floor was as busy as the ones in City Plaza, filled with the same typical mid-income families of four. Children of all ages were running around the lobby like they were in a Chucky Cheese. Even up to the floor of the adult's lending library, the "quiet" signs take on a whole new meaning.

So I told myself I would quickly find the books for my assignment, make photocopies of the few from the reference library, and then get the hell outta there. If you want to make a photocopy at the central library, you have to get a card out of a machine—one the only takes $20 bills. Half that $20 is the deposit and the other half is for you to make copies with, which are at 50 cents apiece. So I pulled out a 20, got my very own FLEXiCARD, and stood in line for the photocopiers. I was only the third in queue but I must've waited for 20 minutes. The whole time I stood and watched these people having a go at these machines, I kept saying to myself "I have to blog this."

I seriously would've thought people who'd make an effort to look at books in a library would have the wits to operate a photocopier. But from what I observed, the number of times a person messes up a copy generally exceeds the total number of copies he/she intended to make in the first place. At 50 cents apiece, I'd say these copiers are generating a bigger profit for the library than French fries do for McDs. Many of the "copy makers" were in teams of two, the assumption being it takes two brains to operate these sophisticated touch-screen copiers of the 21st century. A boy-girl dual was on Machine 1. For maximum efficiency, one partner would be responsible for flipping the pages and the other would be in charge of pushing the button. When the copier doesn't work like they expected, they'd discuss, restructure their plan, argue, switch roles, and peek at the guy on the next machine before one would go to the information counter to get help while the other "saves their spot".

The guy on the color copier didn't have a partner. But considering that his age is four times that of the button-pusher at the next machine, he shouldn't need one. And he seemed to be doing fine, making Kodak-quality copies of images of mountain sceneries, until his card was down to $0.0. Without hesitation, he went to the FLEXiCARD machine, pulled out a 20 and got his second card, on the way to which was another machine called a Value Loader, which only takes coins. Color copies were $3 apiece so it wasn't long until he ran out of money again. I think he went to the information counter asking to exchange a large bill for a whole bunch of $20s that the staff brought him to the Value Loader.

On Machine 3, another dual was in another man-vs-machine episode. Not realizing that their opponent has the ability of automatically determining the size of their original, they produced A3-sized copy after A3-sized copy of spread-out pages of their book when all they needed were one side of the spreads. Besides ask each other "why is it so long?" they kept taking advantage of the apparent buy-one-get-one-free deal. It was only when they finally realized that the long pages are costing them a dollar each that they decided to ask a staff for help.

I'd spent a good share of my time on the photocopiers at Business Depot back in my university days. Making photocopies of borrowed notes and past papers was as routine as my part-time job. I guess the medieval machines at Business Depot, with the constant issues of paper jam and empty cartridges, along with the store's only-helpful-when-they're-willing staff, gave me the necessary training and the confidence to combat the machines of our own time.